ONESHOT: Unsorted
by RAW-SYNTH3TICA
Summary: T16 - Katniss/Peeta - Post-Hunger Games, Peeta takes time to adjust to the aftermath of the Games while distancing himself from Katniss. *Peeta's POV*


T16 - ALL IS FICTIONAL & NOT MINE, Post-Hunger Games, Peeta takes time to adjust to the aftermath of the Games while distancing himself from Katniss.

Pairing: Katniss Everdeen + Peeta Mellark

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ONESHOT: Unsorted

Peeta's POV

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The air was sweet when I stepped off the train's platform, almost like the other side of the tunnel was a dream and I woke up to a nearly peaceful reality. Who knew that the other side of the tunnel, behind a stone and concrete fence was the Capitol? A breeze kicked up leaves over my legs and cooled me from my right leg and hips to my face, I remembered then that my left was gone. From left hip ball joint to the toe, I was numb, my whole world felt unbalanced, like I was somehow awkwardly swinging my right leg around to support my entire body, and was Miraculously able to hop at a degree when rolling my heel forward, but the familiar weight and pressure applied to the sockets of my left hip never left. It was almost close to home after I learned to use both my actual and artificial leg. But Effie and Portia were generous not to have me unsupervised when I rehabilitated myself. I wanted to be perfect for Katniss. I Had to be able to hold my head high beside her when we walk into the Victor's Village, even if I'm questioning my unmoving loyalty with her betrayal.

I remember clearly falling off the bed when I kept my eyes closed and ripped out the tube feeding me antibiotics and sleep-drugs. By that time I'd learned to keep my eyes shut and pulse steady while I spent several hours to recollect my thoughts, then when sleep couldn't find me, I'd look awake enough to fake my attempt escape. But once I had worked up a plan and took a good glimpse of my surroundings enough, I knew I just had to get Katniss and myself out of this place. I would have Katniss lending her good sense of direction while dodging about the Capitol, or I'd carry her until the 'sleep-aids' burned out of her system, and Then we'd have a real idea getting home.

My tongue swelled, my right leg churned in unrest, my arms flailed and gripped at soft sheets as my back cricked into sitting position after I ripped needle away and the straps off my body. How long was I laying here in this bed, I didn't know, there was no one around to ease me back into the white room I was in. I was naked, my palms were damp and cold as I tried to massage the tangled nerves in my leg muscles. Alarms went off in the room flashing reds, oranges, or blue, but they came into the room dressed in white over their multi-hued skin. In attempt to run, I flung off the sheets to keep from getting trapped myself. I jumped off the raised mattress and flew face first into the chest of a peacekeeper. I wriggled to escape, then I saw Katniss' lifeless body being wheeled past the door.

"Katniss!" I shouted uselessly as more peacekeepers blocked my view of her pale profile, whomever was pushing her plushy stretcher halted and looked over to the scene I was making.

"KATNISS!" I yelled louder while the suited capitol citizens shushed me, I threw off two peacekeepers that held my waist and arms back, I held my ground with a question, "Is she okay?"

Me with no answer when I shot my gaze to others nearest to me I brought my eyes back to her, I must've looked lost and scared as I combed their clinical expressions for a hopeful clue of Katniss' condition. They held onto me while I bounded in their grasp, searching desperately for any detail that she wasn't going to have her body turned into an awful 'muttation', I couldn't handle that if it were to happen. I held my breath to slow my heart as I felt a capitol nurse prod my left elbow's vein. I desperately strained my eyes to focus and stare past those horrible bruises and partially-healed cuts on her face. The needle entered my skin but the nurse was unsure if she/he got the right artery, so I tensed my arm harder to make my skin solid as iron-steel and to buy me time to dredge the eerie serenity in her face. Successfully, the needle went no further than my skin when my muscles tightened over the pulsing vein, and effectively blocked the medical instrument's passage into my arm.

"Is She Alive?" my throat raw and wheezing, I jousted and knocked the near-invisible people, they still wouldn't give me a nod or a shake. I could've fought them off if my unresponsive left leg could catch grip on the floor tiles! If only my strength could return and carry me to Katniss! How could I not feel it before? My left leg was asleep but worse, when I threw it aside or stepped on it, there was a partially hollow thump and clank of springs contracting, my foot had no sensation. I looked down, my curiosity too great, I saw my hip end at a pile of bandages wrapping around my left pelvis and the beginning of something that shrieked, 'Look! Look what you've done! You stupid, stupid boy! Didn't I tell you not to go into those woods? Well, didn't I?'

My unbearable panic, dread and revulsion brought up remembered past events, things I wanted to forget but couldn't because they were so vivid and ingrained. Once after months of watching Katniss, I followed her and her father into the woods and came home with a long welted electric burn across the back of my head, connecting my left temple to my nape, every two inches or so were marked by deep barbed wire gashes. Blood flowed through like a stream, but blinded me worse than night as I flailed and felt my way home by the smell of baking loaves for tomorrow. I stumbled to my doorstep and thought, 'Mama, where are you?'

The shop was small. It was only a single room with many shelves and no other furniture except a glass-bare display rack, a penniless cash register and a coal-lit stove somewhere in the corner of the shop. My blood-crusted fingers touched upon still-warm loaves, the delicately fluffy innards yielding to my hands when I broke the perfectly round crusts. The fluxing cool and warmth coagulated my eyes shut with the blood running thin red sheets the second I moved, drops and layers over my face, seeping through to my shirt and jacket. I could've gotten through a maze in this condition, I could've kneaded and cut dough without the use of my eyes, but I couldn't find my mother in the shop that was no bigger than a classroom!

But she found me before I mistook the central oven for her warmth, she threw me over her knee without a second thought and hit me with the nearest thing she could find; a wire whisk. Over and over until I was sure my bottom was beaten thin she smacked me, she poured cold water over my entire body and scrubbed me bare, then she threw me to my father to get my school clothes washed by a lady several doors down the street. My father swaddled me up in a threadbare quilt and sat me on my mother's rocking chair with a delicate sweet roll to nibble. I wondered how her nimble hands could craft sweet breads that almost melt into paste as one chewed through the crust, 'Oh, yeah, my dad's the baker, mama works the register and book accounts.'

The pain mattered less and less as night wore on and she shut the door behind with my sopped clothing in both hands. Her sleep-gaunt face alit with the burning kilns lent a malicious glow to her severe appearance, her back heaved, her hands shook as her bony white hands squeezed drops out of the cloth. She fumed with a whistle in her air passage, then I knew; my mother took those clothes to a nearby stream and washed my things herself when the laundress turned her away. I sat in wait for the whip to come, and she didn't disappoint. Her words numbed me and drowned out my wounded-like sounds, like a yapping animal caught in a trap I wailed. Her words hurt more because I forgot the pain as she slowed her arms and lessened her slaps, soon there was only my weak body and her tireless squawking about my stupidity, the full day's ruined baked goods, my incompetence, she swore up and down that I was useless and how I was worth little more than a lump of coal in this filthy district we were born into.

Katniss replaced my mother's yawping with her sweet little voice. Hours went by with her charming notes battled with my mother's hollering. The belt laying bruises on my body was replaced by Katniss' swishing red dress, soon my mother grew bored with my unresponsiveness and left me in a purple heap on a woodpile. I thanked Katniss. I had no way of showing my gratitude though.

The peacekeepers and Capitol nurses strapped me back to the bed within that millisecond of lapsed horror. My awed silence and passive actions took a violent turn, I thrashed, I yelled, my weak muscles solidified over my veins. I needed to see the girl who could make me endure the impossible! I spat out capsules and sprayed water as they gave up and tried sating me orally, they finally fixed a hose and funnel into my body. I bit down on the hose and held my breath to keep from choking. They thoroughly gave up, leaving me with the hose to eventually swing forcefully out of my throat. The Capitol left me to scream myself to sleep, but I was thoroughly alert. To them, killing me would be easy, almost sport. They could count my death to accident, they could do anything they want to me since I drew blood from nearly all of them.

No doubt they could afford new skin-dyes, new fingers, new arms, new body paints made of ground precious metals inlaid into their skin. I just proved them right. If my hospitalization were broadcasted to the world, I would have single-handedly gave a new stereotype to our district. District Twelve is populated by nothing but uncivilized wretches. District Twelve is full of people who don't bother tasting human flesh (uncooked in my case). District Twelve is worth little more than the caviar the pets of the Capitol are fed. District Twelve is addicted to blood spilled from any living thing ('Innocent' peacekeepers and Capitol nurses for me).

Thankfully, I can depend on Haymitch when it comes to excuses and making Katniss and I 'seem crazy in love'. For one of us it was real, Katniss wasn't the one so it was told when we refueled hours ago. I can imagine the headlines, the angles of reality the shows would script until (or beyond) the Seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games: District Twelve's tributes had their victory written in the stars. District Twelve is the new romantic tour de force of the year to sweep Panem. District Twelve's 'Star-crossed Lovers' are united by their unwillingness to live without one another. District Twelve is the new Underdog (it'll be wiser to double down on placed bets for next year). Katniss Everdeen or Peeta Mellark, who will take over mentoring in place of Haymitch?

If I were to take Haymitch's place, I think taking up drinking and spewing 'Anti-Capitol' slogans would justify my hate for the Games. But I would thank fate for bringing me and Katniss together, then curse the same fate who turned her into the 'Girl on Fire'. Katniss without the paint, the jewels, without Haymitch's coaching would've done me Just Fine. Would she think the same of me? Or does she prefer the stiff matching suits to my frosting-stained baker's apron? I'd rather her stomach full than mine on the verge of bursting, it saves us both the trouble of being cranky. Come to think of it; whatever meat we stocked up on our bodies went away before our second week in the Arena.

I fell for Katniss. The 'Girl on Fire' was the one who kissed me, healed me, fed me, and tip-toed around in heels for approval. It was so real. Everything about her in the past weeks was surreal. Until one or the other was scolding me, touching me, feeding me the illusion of our love. For one of us it was true. I lay dreamless but in state of thought for the days I interpreted this riddle. I woke with the doorknob Quietly working clicks or locks from the jamb, they attempted to feed me, but I knew as well as my stomach what one bite meant; they were going to put me asleep and fix those needles and tubes back into my arm. And I would never know if Katniss was okay.

I dreamed endlessly about Katniss, while my eyes stared glazed over and open, my mind worked images of her and I into this bright white room. Minutes passed in hours as the bone-colored walls bled shadowed flowers, harmless unripe nightlock berry patches and dark towering tree canopies, the lights became hardly but sprinkles between pine needles and various blends of pitch-blues when night fell with me laying on my back and her nestled in my arms. We don't say anything while I stroke her hair and reassuringly squeeze her shoulders, she sometimes looks up at me and I catch her clear gray eyes searching my face. I can't help but gaze back and press my lips against hers', she says something inaudible and I listen to her for hours trying to figure out this strange language she's mumbling to me in.

The moon sets, the sun rises, the sun sets, the stars glint between the grays around her pupils, and tears are running down my face. I think it's stupid that I'm crying on a calm occasion, her faint conversation becomes a whisper, and I sob uncontrollably. I wipe my eyes over and over until it's so useless that I'm no longer bothering with it. I realize that she's singing me a love song. The song never ends the more her voice stretches beyond the passing stars and rising suns, soon the mockingjays can stand no longer not taking part in her beautiful melody.

The birds turn out to be jabberjays, adding chorus and sentences here and there as she continued to hypnotize me with her eyes, those unforgettable lips eliciting sounds foreign to the birds perched about us. They flew lower the more her voice soared above and the lower the little birds flitted until the ground lay covered and replaced by the 'muttation'-birds instead of flowers, she smiled as she took notice when one flew atop my head and muttered along. I'm left with her lips attached to mine and the birds narrating poem after poem of timelessness, of our actions mirroring those of a play now hundreds years old.

I whisper, between her breaks for air, "Katniss!"

"Katniss!" soon kisses are not enough, I pull her up to meet my lips more fully. She says something inaudible again and I wake back in the white room, my mouth words her name even after I find my stomach uncomfortably full and needles in my elbow where they once were, "Katniss."

"Is this spot taken?" Katniss asks as I look up from where I sat on a grassy knoll overlooking the sunset, she was leaning down behind me with the long silver bullet train still unmoved. Close enough that I could feel the silky curls brushing side to side on my nape. She is beautiful I think to myself. Idiot! Katniss Everdeen is an intense girl who became a sturdy young woman in the Games. Why am I so drawn to this huntress? I assume maybe it was the fire that spelled my doom. I don't answer, I force my gaze from her and shake my head. She slips down beside me in a cross-legged position with a comfortable space between us, which could only point us out as friends. Her fingers play knowingly with the delicate green blades swaying in the breeze, while I discreetly hyperventilated under my breath. My chest hurt, my fingers buzzed as if I rubbed my palms against a marble slab. Her lips formed a tiny hollow in the centers and she whistled, adding simple notes after I began to fidget. Was she trying to calm me down?

She pretended not to notice until the uncomfortable silence turned sour, she said, "Something's on your mind, Peeta."

Katniss didn't ask for an explanation, she didn't acknowledge the loud gurgling in my stomach. I knew the Katniss Everdeen of District Twelve to be direct and spot on from her arrowhead to the targets' eye she aimed at, namely me in this moment where we're more alone than ever. Never one to be afraid of talking to strangers I only directed my gaze to her and find that she's been staring at me the entire time. Then again, I don't know this girl looking to me for answers I have no right to give her, I was stripped of them as soon as she revealed her steadfastness to the Capitol's Games. I wondered how much of Katniss was left after they stripped her down and dressed her in the 'Girl on Fire's' clothes. They took her personality too, now I don't know who I'm talking to, the 'Girl on Fire' or Katniss Everdeen from District Twelve. She can decide for herself when we spend the remainder of our lives in the Victor's Village. My heart stopped dead after realizing that epitome, truth can go only so far and stop short of an apology. The Girl on Fire is fiercely unapologetic, especially to those professing love. Shot in the eye again. Peeta Mellark, when'll you ever learn?

"When Haymich's our neighbor, what do we do with the one house we're supposed to 'lovingly' live in?" I ask somewhat too harshly. Katniss blinks twice and takes in a deep breath, I beat her to the punch with, "Does the Capitol have cameras in the Victor's Village? Does the Capitol direct our lives from when we set foot in the threshold?"

"What are you saying, Peeta?" she sounds calm, but I can see the line her lips make as she barks, "Say it!"

From what I said during the interview with Caesar, I knew then that here was a girl who could back her argument with a fist and my blood on her knuckles. There are boundaries you just do not cross when speaking to a lady: Never ask for her age. Always compliment her advancement in years. Never give an arbitrary number. Always leave room for mystery. Never discuss bad taste. Always compliment her 'otherworldly' wear. Never 'improve' her specialty dish. Always offer to help cook the next meal. Never comment on her habits. Always agree to disagree. Never disagree. Always quietly assume.

These rules make me itch to say what's really on my mind, and technically she never did like my acts of chivalry. If she wants to hear the truth, her wish is my command…

"Fine," I say. My chest heaves and a new break of sweat makes my throat dry. I wish I had a flask full of Haymitch's meals, facing her head-on meant that I'll remember and be sorry about this later. At the same time, we've reached the point of no return the second she took Prim's place and played the Capitol's Game like a Career Tribute. If my heart went unanswered, my upheaval will Not go unheard! I burst, "Katniss, -when I'm thinking I'm This much closer to understanding you, guess what, sweetheart? I'm That much farther away from second guessing why I'm alive now!"

She looks away, I can see she's taking in my words. I didn't want to hurt her. Not like this. Anywhere, anyhow, but not out of spite. She's too good for that. She takes things easily as wrongly as I do. But unlike her, I think long and hard until I hear the truth clearly in the other's words. She'll completely ice over and take the first answer she's given, which makes her stronger than me. She'll forgive quickly or in time, but Never forget. I'm holding her hand, I'm pulling her body to mine. I'm willing myself not to crush her when my arms go around her shoulders. I wish our time in the Arena wasn't at it's end, and we're playing Panem's star-crossed couple, and I was still playing my part through immersive acting.

"Peeta," her voice sounds so small when she pushes further into my arms, I stare straight ahead to keep myself guarded and my heart in it's rightful place: alone. She asks, "Why are you alive?"

"Because, Katniss-" my words run away from my mouth, so does the truthfulness in my answer, "-I trusted you."

My lips found hers', and melded gently, I shook when she pushed me down and laid fully on me. I was at her surrender. Katniss tore her face away from mine and pulled my arms off herself. I might not have impressed her, but she did have the look when her lips dropped and eyes slightly widen, and it was gone. The look of utter surprise and being completely behind the boundaries she set between herself and weakness led me to believe further that she did have a side easier to reach, and in spite of myself, I turned away. I stood up and walked, letting Katniss take in the view of my back as I tread back up the hill to the train.

Up until now, I tried to be distant from her even if my body wanted to disobey and try to reach deep within her and make her listen, to feel. Or explain why my heart clung to the suddenly ungratefully needy edge Katniss had, I wanted to be emotionally dead to the world as she has, then it might toughen me enough to fling around and pour myself into the failed kiss while hoping she won't drive a sharp stick littering the ground into my chest. When comparing the two of us: me and Katniss, she not only has the height advantage, but also speed, and agility. And stratagem. And emotional detachment. Her suggestion of frosting the competition to death seemed true to me when I remembered calling the Arena a huge cake. Idiot! Idiot Me! Sure I can be invisible, but even the invisible ache to be Seen sometimes.

She could have painted herself dull and bland, and I could swear that I still can struggle to love her less than I do now. Another bell toll and a hoot from the train horn urged her steps to follow mine from the flattened grass, I looked at my shadow and saw the solitary baker's son hunched in defeat, his sunshine-squatted legs tumbled forward unto the train's steps. The sun's glare and my unintentional tears played too many tricks during the Games, even now I hardly believe a slender hand reaching to my shoulder. But none of that happens because my personal estimations disagree with reality.

She stands still as a tree, and makes a move to leave before I work up an answer which suits our standing perfectly, "If you want."

Her legs gracefully sweep under her and stay folded where I knew she would sit cross-legged. The friends-not-lovers space was between us. It felt wider and broader than I imagined. She picked up a perfectly round pebble and brushed her thumb over and over on the river stone. Voices erupted behind us, I glanced back to see Effie gushing over our time taken to be alone. Haymitch stood beside her and gave a very slight nod in Katniss' direction, I know those two are still in league with each other. Somehow I'm suddenly angry, offended and surprisingly unconcerned. If they wanted to drag the Games beyond the Arena, I'd give into the illusion they're setting up for the audience, but I won't be fooled twice by the same plot. It's done and everyone's still talking about it.

"Dying at Cato's hands betrays my promise to Rue and Prim," she says sullenly, rolling the stone down the knoll. I only stare on into the setting sun as the silence stretches on. She asks, her voice softened, "What do you think I should've done, Peeta?"

"Simple," I say, I want to pay her back for making the world stop turning by forcing real emotion from me. And I can't. I'm better than that. I say what I Know she doesn't want to hear, "Turn your back to the camera. Stop playing into the Capitol's Game."

She looks hard at the side of my face like she had something to say, actions in the Arena to explain. But she let out a breath either because she thought I wasn't worth reasoning with or the fact that I looked like I could murder her with a gaze. My neck hairs prickled and my face heated in building anger. She wasn't provoking me or nothing, I just didn't want to know the Real Katniss or else I might start to grow close again. I wanted to be left alone with my defeat and my mother's scars. I wanted so bad to be back in the Games, always believing Anything Katniss said, always worried and focused completely on Her. I would've killed myself for her, too. I wanted that now more than anything, at least then I would prove the extremity of myself to her. I would be remembered by her. I would be spared the treachery.

"It's too late for that," she half-laughs and sternly adds, "Survival by all means wasn't an option, I did it for us."

'for Us'? I stifle a chuckle, she catches the snort and ignores it. How does the famous saying go? 'Life imitating art imitating Life.' How true. How oh so true! The audacity of some people amazes me, and I've been proved wrong before being one who could make friends out of enemies. Her survival wasn't the option, mine was. As I've said: I would've died for Katniss Everdeen.

"At whose expense, Katniss?" I nearly hiss. I could feel my ribcage expand as my lungs swelled with something unnamable and ugly. I asked her the question that kept me awake since the day a hole appeared beneath my feet, "What did you lose in that arena?"

Her shock was apparent, she choked a while quietly behind her reddening face. A twinge of regret made my teeth squeeze and my jaws ache, the world was shaking because she stopped breathing. I know that feeling. Feeling like the world had you cornered and just giving the Right answer would save you. Seeing her feel something gave me a sick satisfaction. I could see in her face that she was searching, scraping, raking her mind for something in the past weeks at the Capitol which could explain her actions, her words, herself during our stay. She pulled her folded legs up to her chest and glared at me, I looked far past the horizon to the gleaming walls of another district.

She was defending herself from me, she was shouting and speaking not to me, but to the doubtful (now dead) tributes where she remembered their faces before they died, "I lost my friends, Peeta! I've lost my faith more than once! I've lost trust-!"

"In What? In Who? You?" I interrupt before she adds 'lost trust from Cinna' or Effie or President Snow or District Twelve. I can't stand the lies that just keep piling and adding, so I laugh in my train of thought, "You can't be serious!"

"Stop it, Peeta!" she says, turning her face in my peripheral vision to see how I've wounded her.

Who is she kidding? It's only me and her where I know the secret to her success, oh and Haymitch. She had nothing to hide from me. She didn't have to hold Rue or Gale or Prim or her mother over me like I was around to hungrily absorb the drama surrounding them. That's the Capitol's job. Maybe she remembers me, who I was and who I remained as long after the Games were done. I didn't care any more if she wished I stayed the same. Gale pulled her through, and she saved my life.

"You've done our drunk mentor proud, and don't forget your glitter-eyed stylist and the sponsors! And most of all: the audience," I stand up almost fluidly and throw up my arms in the direction of the Capitol. I am grateful! I am so unlike myself and I end up mimicking Caesar and bowing in front of her and smiling, "What a good investment you've been, how you had them wrapped around your little finger."

"Stop it, Peeta!" Katniss screams and stands up in front of me, she still looks down at me while I advance and she steps back.

"Don't oversell it, Sweetheart! There're no cameras to catch those crocodile tears or that kiss you'll blow me later!" my smile widens into a full-blown grin. I'm not taunting her, I'm telling her what she wants to hear. I wouldn't mind being sucked into her tornado of problems, but no, I'm not good enough because I can't stagger like a two-legged panther. If I grew up hating dough crusting between my fingers, I would've taken up living in the mine's crawlspace or in a dead tree's husk. I'm not, I can't. I'm sorry if I'm not perfect like Gale.

Her scream echoes with the sound of her palm cracking against my face. The pain is minimal to the memory of my mother doing the same thing, but even in my mother's age, Katniss left my face feeling like I was smacked with a hot pan. My lip split and I knew, she hit me harder than she intended. The gaping shiver brought on to her face signaled to me that I pushed too far with the few words we passed just now.

I wanted to recite a great long speech on how confused I felt, but the clearest thing made to me was a foreign-sounding chuckle, "You know the funny thing, Katniss?"

"I stayed true to my word," I said, swallowing the blood welling in my mouth, "The only lie I told was to the Careers."

Her eyes spilled over and traced lines down her face until the curve of her chin slowed the flow. She looked so crestfallen and rang in all ways that was Rue. The anger boiling in me deflated until I was left with absolute guilt scratching up and down my spine. This would be another wedge which forces us farther apart. I'll be hobbling one direction and she'll be left blowing kisses the other.

"Is that suppose to even the playing field?" she shakily whispers, I'm left to breathe in her next answer, "Then I must be dumber than they thought."

What could I do? I can't suddenly hug her kicking and screaming and tell her I'm sorry. There's nothing left for me to say. Peace finds me though in the form of this new parody of myself, which protects me now. I don't indicate her suspicions that the Careers talked behind her back, mostly of our stint which became personal attacks on District Twelve. I gave them true but uninformative answerers about Katniss so that they could take it any other way but mine. I began up the hill to the train while she furiously scrubbed away her tears. I reached the safety railing and glanced back to the sun splashing the Capitol's western walls in reflective oranges.

"Satire works up an apatite," I say, the heat of her surging to my face and my mouth forming half-hearted words before I can stop them. From the looking glass staring outward while she idly passed her reflection layered over my image seemed like the surreal thing happening now. I didn't want to sound cruel or like I had a bone to pick, but since My kindness couldn't affect her, she just had to deal with my shame and terrible wit that made up for my humble humor, "Or so Haymich says."

I step on the platform when Katniss shoves me aside and back, I catch my grip on her hand as she hauls me up from stumbling in a heap on a harsh path of railway tracks, she saved me a good day and some in the train's hospice, I would've thanked her except she let go and flew past our mentor Haymitch on his fumy supper.

"I'm not hungry," I heard her mumble as she passed Haymitch and went across the living car to a small cabin in the second car.

"Keep a lonely bottle company, sweetheart," Haymitch said a second too late for her to hear when we were answered with the door slamming. He staggered past me and flopped down on a couch, "Oh, tension is so pleasantly claustrophobia-ensuring I'm about to upchuck."

I nodded in agreement and picked a crystal urn to drink from, I filled a cup and tilted back as much of the foul stuff my lungs could carry. I coughed and spurted the stuff on the table. It's Terrible!

"Whoa! Slow down, sport," Haymitch patted my back and lifted the glass away from my hand, he led me to a settee while he knelt down on the floor in front of me. He slurred, "We don't want you taking indigestive swan dives off the train, now do we?"

I tried to laugh when I remembered his feat during the reaping, but I coughed and nodded with a smile pushing my cheeks back. He reminded me of my father: sometimes aloof but always helpful in his own way. I missed my father.

"Treat the cognac like a true lady. She likes to be courted, not molested in one sitting," Haymitch hiccupped and half-lectured me while off on his own lecture, he opened the flask he had inside his vest and poured it's contents into my glass, "Or she'll leave you with a headache and lower standards of the female species. No offense, Effie?"

I didn't see Effie where she stood in hot pink to the train's cool and pale contrasts. She looked like an extinct flamingo wading through a pond and dipping her wing to pick up her full flute of wine. She glared daggers at my bravely drunken mentor and gave a curt twitch of her nose, she said, "I would love to see that delightful swan dive, Haymich, if you'd be so kind to spread those lead wings for a demonstration?"

Haymitch looked up at me and had to twist his entire body to Effie, he nearly fell back until I grabbed and steadied him. He appeared awkward for the usually sarcastic exchange with Effie while being held upright by me, he waggled a finger at our spokeswoman and burped in my face.

"Nice dress. I like the color, reminds me of a field of dead flowers," he giggled. Telling by her smile turning into a scowl, Effie almost took it as a compliment, she fumed off while Haymitch shouted after her retreating wig bounced away, "Live a little, ya pink buzzard, this might be the last time you're told to raid the indigent cradle."

She turned around and chucked a melon chunk at Haymitch, which he dodge when he fell out of my grasp, she hissed, "Get liver poisoned, you old beer flea!"

I helped him into the abandoned couch, but somehow he kept slithering on his face into the couch cushion. It couldn't be helped, I guess. So I leave him that way until he flips himself over and lounges on the couch arm. He smacks his lips and scratches his chin-whiskers before turning to me.

"Who tied Her corset too tight? Untying-?" Haymitch warbled, I went back to the plush settee and sipped the horrible green-gold stuff in my cup, "Now Untying is my Real talent."

I listened while our mentor burst into giggle fits, his face turned red, "If I can just get close enough to test my skill…"

"You think maybe she'll let me?" he asked me, I looked up from my glass which I retrieved before he spilled it and saw him blowing at the long hanks of hair touching his nose, "Maybe all that botox and plastic is gettin' in the way of her cheery half-wit."

I took a long, but hearty drag until I could feel my feet curl, my face turn blue and my hairs stand up on end. I stopped before I lost my head and my lunch. Haymitch slapped my knee as he opened his flask and gulped until he motioned me for my cup. Good, it's got somewhere to go and someone else to terrorize.

"Women! Women fall at my feet-!" I think it was a drinking song he was trying to sing, instead it sounded like he was cursing Effie for her unwillingness, "-When 'roll over' was a Capitol greeting!"

My bladder puffed up, I tried to ignore all these sickly things happening to me.

"Say, Peeta," he huffed and threw a pillow over his forehead as he candidly shouted, "Is Katniss still on fire, or what!"

"If you say so," I shrugged, blinking stupidly and slouched. The last thing I wanted to think about was Katniss and her likeness to my mother…well, actually…she reminded me of a lot of people in my life, friends and acquaintances. She has my mother's quick temper and a close relationship with her hands, my father with his few words, I could mention my brothers, but I don't remember them. I don't recall them both, at the same time, I miss them-

"Stop me if I'm a bit out of line here, but suck it up and milk that goose for all she's laying," Haymitch says suddenly, even in this state of groggy, I still know geese don't get milked of their eggs, he whacks my knee to get my wandering attention, "What's the matter with you? I actually almost believed you when you rolled with the punches halfway through the Games."

"She didn't fall for me, Haymitch," I say, "It wasn't real for her."

"Wrong!" Haymitch smacked my knee, "The semi coma you and Katniss worked on the Capitol is still the news, and you know why?"

I shrug for the lack of focus I had. Why were Katniss and I still in the news? How are we news? News is unpleasant gossip piled on a little smidgen of good news. Is that what we are? An unpleasant plot written but remembered because the means are of the end? Not for me. I know the words that were put into Katniss' mouth and their little 'rule change' was a ruse to get us to give them a climatic end of the Games. I shook my head and swallowed my seven-hours old lunch.

"What footage captured of District 12's alliance might mark a new era of television broadcasting," as if I didn't know that, he kept right on marching his words and somehow worked the slurs out, "Nobody thought of all the stories that can be told in the arena, most of it came from the Outside for the past seventy-five years of the Games, you know why?"

'The outside'? Does he mean that the players were only interesting Outside the Arena? Or that their origins was the main source of the drama in the Arena? Now, Haymitch's starting to confuse me. Overall, it was true: the audience took a liking in Katniss because she took her little sister, Prim's, place. And I'm the pathetic guy who confessed to the world that I had a crush on her since…more than ten years ago. It was an innocent slip of the tongue, but it paid everyone who had their hopes pinned on District Twelve's survival. Now there was a new standard of drama Developing During the Games.

"Every tribute thought of their own survival and saving their own emotions for their own purposes," Haymitch hiccupped and quickly resumed before his train of thought cut off completely, he waved his hands in front of me and motioned like he was trying to bottle a cup of lightning, "The chemistry between you both…it was memorable…and freely genuine, and you know why?"

"The suspense is killing me," he answers after I sluggishly heave my shoulders up and down once, he shook his head and attempted to sit up like an upside down turtle. He shuffles to me on his knees and slaps me upside the head, "You're the last thing she says when she sleeps and the first thing she says when she's awake."

Haymitch couldn't be more wrong. The Games highlights focused on her one time yelling my name right after the announcement of the rule change, just before the clip where I was covered head to toe in mud, the stone painted into my face shivering and whispering 'Katniss.' Split from the reality show and watching myself revealed how desperate I was, how perfect we both looked together. The alcohol is making my inner voice lecture me.

"Katniss knew the world was watching. She couldn't exactly mumble Gale when she was better informed of the 'game plan'," I say, shoving him away and standing over his sprawled body, he didn't scare me any more than my mother with a belt in hand. I was right, Gale and Prim was all Katniss ever talked about. As a matter of fact, I wasn't at all told of her father or mother (not that prying is my forte) but only the fact remained that we conversed of the only people she loved, and depended on.

"Would you stop being sorry for yourself and listen?" he boomed at my feet, I nearly fell on his head as his hand squeezed my ankle in an iron grip, the belch he let out while being serious was stifling, "I know love when I see it."

In the Capitol, their use of the word 'love' is how they 'love' their new hairstyles, or skin-dyes, or clothes, or pets, or everything else conceivable besides the 'emotion'. And again, 'emotion' has No meaning to the others of less restraint, besides it being artificially added to objects or using the words to emphasize the 'mood' of inanimate objects (meaning colors and shapes). I can't say the same for Katniss' stylist, Cinna, since them being in the same room spelled Adoration. Our single-worded descriptions consisted of something like: us in the same room - Frigid, us in the training room - Convenient, us at the dinner table - Unknowledgeable, us in the similar outfits - Arbitrary, us in the Arena - Drama. Finally, us in the same District - Invisible…Haplessly Invisible? In love?

"Like this little beauty here," Haymitch broke through the inner dialogue while pulling something from under the couch, a bottle. He untwisted the cap and took long draws from the neck and mumbled, "Get some sleep, we'll be stoppin' again soon in some district."

He let go. I found myself in front of Katniss' bedroom door counting the trees that swept by in a window on the side of the speeding train. I think about knocking. It seems polite enough except it's a formality and I don't count on a formal welcome into our temporary quarters. She's never needed anything from me aside from reassurance, I notice because sometimes her words catch or her expression snags on millions of questions she doesn't ask. And Poof! I'm there to give her a leg up. Seriously, how do I talk to someone whom I've already somewhat-insulted not ten minutes ago. Maybe it's been an hour. I suck up my pride and inhale to spill out my words simultaneously before I lose my sudden need for vocalizing. I open my mouth and let all the pent up air rush out past my throat without fashioning them into words.

There's a hand on my shoulder and the 'open' touch-dial, I'm suddenly pushed into her room. Katniss sits straight up in her bed and stares at me. Her eyes place cuts and gashes as her tear-dried cheeks twitch. I feel like I'm looking at a ghost, she turns over and lays back down on the covers. Only she's rising and walks to the sink to rinse her face, she returns to the bed and leaves me with a deep, hollow sigh. She hardly twitches when I sit on the lower edge and reach her bedside. I say low, "The nightlock berries… They could keep anyone full with one bite."

"You've saved my life over and over and I feel like I let you down because of my selfishness," now I'm pouring myself out to her and I try to keep myself grounded and sane. The green stuff in my cup made a major slip of my tongue, I say, "I love you, Katniss Everdeen."

The bed creaks slightly as I feel her eyes on me with her body supported by her arms. I attempt to glance back but end up having a handful of her hair in my palms, my body pushed into hers', but her arms welcome me. She's clinging on to me, she's pulling me to her while I'm fighting not to crush her. I break away from her body and push myself up so that she is treated with the same relief that passes over my face. She watches me in wonder while I relive my dream and sweep the wavy locks away from her face, I dip my face to her ear. My breathing evened a sort after the initial cowardice of me passed. She held hers' when I pressed a kiss to her warm ear's edge.

"I wouldn't think twice about letting you win," I say, my voice solid. I twirled her hair in my fingers and took another breath, "Even if I had to lie to you."

We kiss. We make love until we reach our destination. Even then, Effie and Haymitch host the celebration in our honor. I hold her. My arms hook on to her and stay. We sleep for days until Effie and Haymitch decide to roust us and get us ready for the next destination: our home in the Victor's Village.

But I'm still standing in front of the door where I last stood. I'm not at right with Katniss and we're still not as I've hoped to be, the world still isn't happy or rose-colored outside of my head. I knock.

There's a shuffling behind the door and a quiet, "Come in."

The door seems to slide open and I'm on the floor with the taste of blood in my mouth. She stands tall even when her seeming weakness is played up with the streaks dripping down her face, I say, "I apologize for my earlier actions. It was wrong of me to criticize you when I had no say."

She grabs me by my collar and throws me against a wall outside of her room. So I spurn her on with, "I'll try not to let us get to my head."

That does it, she wraps her hands around my throat and watches my face lose motion. Suddenly it's black. Everywhere is black. The dark shades choke my eyes and feel like no matter how fast I blink, there is no color. But I'm still standing in front of her door and contemplating my next act. The door opens.

Katniss is naked, telling by her smooth silhouette. She flips on a light and I'm met with her form in the black training suits we were given for practicing in. My heart stops as her warm hand closes over mine and she pulls me below the sheets after her. She hands me my set which lay folded under her pillow, and I strip below the sheets and shimmy into my pair unquestioningly. It feels familiar, cool and warm at the same time. I accidentally brush my knees against hers', but she doesn't seem to mind and keeps her eyes closed. I wish she'd look at me naked.

The lights turn off after I'm done changing, she scoots closer to me and whispers shyly, "It's the only way I can sleep."

I nod and know she acknowledges it through the slight waves the pillow gives off. We're sharing the same pillow face to face, laying side by side under the same comforter and barefoot in our old training gear, the alternative to being back in the Games is suddenly better. I know this is reality because she snuggles closer and mumbles almost child-like (which are completely different from my earlier imagined possibilities of her reactions to me), "Don't you ever feel like you could live in the Arena forever?"

My face must have given away my shock and at loss for words since she hiked the comforter up to give me time to answer. I say, "Sometimes."

"Me too," she answered and pushed the covers around me up to the ears. She nervously brushed her fingers over and over the edge of the cover, I understood her trouble with verbally revealing herself, so I waited patiently for what she was working up to say. Some time later, she whispered so low that I strained to hear, "I'm grateful you're alive, Peeta."

We weren't exactly in any position for me to suddenly declare that her life was worth a thousand of my own deaths, so instead I nodded and stayed still. I respectfully took her suddenly cold hands in mine and laid them between us, she appreciatively hummed as I kneaded her freezing hands warm. She nodded off and I opened my eyes to keep this image of us with me. I couldn't help myself as I whispered, "I love you."

Katniss shifted against me, her hands wrapped themselves around my palms and gave me a gentle squeeze. She groggily mumbled, "I know."

* * *

KATNISS/PEETA FOREVER~!

This piece is set After the train refuels when Katniss tells Peeta of the 'plan' (in the book, not the film), whereas here Peeta (in this fic) kind of Explodes before they get to another district while taking a break. I adore Kat/Peeta, but am more of a slash-writer (Peeta/Gale, Peeta/Cato, that sort of thing, but I've yet to write one). Yay Franchise! The Hunger Games is the Best! Hey, not only do I have to read Catching Fire & Mockingjay, but I'm desperately trying to write Around my job's hours…& the fact that I wuvvs Kat/Peeta…heh heh 'Peeniss'? that gave me a laugh.

How did I do for my first non-slash? Q(^~^)


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